


"not as bad as we had always assumed"

by clickingkeyboards



Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Daisy has some thoughts on Hazel's casebook, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 08:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29115267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: Daisy reads through Hazel's casebook for The Case of the Death on the Nile and takes umbrage with a particular line about Clementine Delacroix: Hazel believes that she is not as bad as they had always thought, while Daisy holds a grudge because of a harsh comment from years ago that stuck.
Relationships: Daisy Wells & Hazel Wong
Kudos: 19





	"not as bad as we had always assumed"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunshinedflower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshinedflower/gifts).



“Hazel, why have you…” Daisy frowned at my casebook, at a line right near the beginning. She put the book down and balled her hands up into fists, jerking them about in front of her face and screwing up her face. “I don’t like that you’ve written that.”

“Written what?” I leant over and picked up the casebook, one that Daisy had gifted to me with beautiful golden swirls on the cover and the pages cleverly edged with blue. Scanning the pages, I couldn’t see what was bothering her so fiercely, especially as she has become quite normal with my teasing about Amina. “What’s upsetting you?”

“It’s nothing.” Forcing herself to stop waving her hands about, she took the book from me again and started reading, leaning against my side. “You do know that I like you very much, don’t you?”

I nodded, surprised by that declaration. “Yes, I do. Why did—”

“The beginning.” The wrinkle appeared at the top of Daisy’s nose. “I know that you… know I’m alive now but the beginning is so very upsetting. I don’t want to make you that upset ever again.”

“Oh.” I felt myself smiling. “As long as you’re not ever that foolhardy again, Daisy, you never will.”

She smiled back at me, though she still seemed tense and locked up about her shoulders, as if she was not telling the whole truth about it being nothing at all.

* * *

I had just changed into my nightdress and climbed into bed when Daisy, who was in the other bed and wringing her hands and making soft noises in her usual way, said, “Hazel?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you really think that Clementine isn’t that bad?”

I turned to stare. Was this what she had been worried about earlier? “She’s alright, I suppose. Why?”

“In Fourth Form, during the Bonfire Night case, Clementine said that…” Daisy closed her eyes, remembering what must have been a word-perfect quote. “‘Not all girls want to be married, you know. Sometimes things go wrong in their brains. It’s terribly shocking, but it’s true.’ I got fiercely angry at her when she said it, told her the horrible thing I knew about her that I’d gladly spread about. But you only… stared at her. Wonderingly. As if you… well, I know now that you were thinking about Margaret and Astrid, but I thought… I thought that you agreed with her, when I looked at you and you had that almost… admiring expression on your face. I was so afraid. It was only when you were terribly decent to Margaret and Astrid later on that I thought you might be alright with it. With _me_.”

That part of Fourth Form was a dreadful knotted mess inside my head, me slapping Daisy and her shouting at me, Binny going missing and the horrible secrets being spread about, whispers of opium and scandalous brothers and sick mothers and broken homes. I prefer not to think about it, and I had always assumed that Daisy thought the same. I had never thought that she would turn the words we said to each other over and over in her mind in such a peculiarly un-Daisyish way.

“Oh, _Daisy_.” I felt very wobbly and my eyes were beaded with tears, but I flung myself from my bed and onto hers.

“Ow, Watson,” she said, muffled under the covers, but I could tell that she was pleased. “You don’t need to be all…”

I shifted under the quilt so I could properly put my arms around her. “Don’t be silly, Daisy. I am very alright with you liking girls, you _know_ that! I had… forgotten that Clementine thought that. I just didn’t think of it.”

“Well, I can’t forget those things!” she snapped, folding her arms and pulling away from me. “Every time my parents said that I ought to get married, every single bitter comment about Bertie, every single giggling girl at school teasing about pashes and fancies for other girls, every article about it in the papers saying that girls like me mean to hurt people, and _turn_ them so they’re like us, every single time someone like Clementine says anything… I can’t forget those things, Hazel! They don’t bother you like they bother me!”

I had never thought of it like that, thought of Daisy storing up every awful thing that people said about girls like her. I had always assumed that she brushed it off as she did any other comment about her family. But I realised then that this was quite different. It was _her_ , a very deep part of her, and she was being hurt by those teases in the same way that the opium rumours hurt me.

“I’m sorry.” I put my arm around her shoulders. “If it makes any difference at all, I think that you liking girls is a very lovely thing indeed.”

“Do you think people will be kinder in the future?” Daisy asked, and her voice was very small.

“I hope so! Maybe you’ll even be able to get married! Wouldn’t that be nice?” It seemed very unlikely, but if I closed my eyes then I could kid myself that something similar to those brilliant protests for women’s suffrage would happen in favour of girls like Daisy and boys like Bertie.

That made Daisy smile. “Damn right I should be able to get married. Maybe I could kiss Amina in public!”

“You would sweep her off her feet!” I agreed. “Not that you don’t already.”

She rolled her eyes. “Shut up, Watson.” After a pause, she added, “Thank you.”

“Do you want me to cross out that bit about Clementine?”

She yawned and leant against me. “You don’t have to, it’s your casebook and what you think. I don’t get to… dictate it. Now, shush, you make a very good pillow.”

I tried not to laugh and learnt my head against hers. For all that she had changed over the course of our last new cases (the Daisy of 1934 would never have thought to say that I didn’t have to change that line in my casebook), she really was as Daisy-ish as ever.


End file.
